Measure provides incentives for firms to use E-Verify

Companies that don't check the legal status of new workers would lose access to government contracts and special economic incentives under the terms of proposed legislation approved Tuesday by the Senate Appropriations Committee.

The move, part of a comprehensive rewrite of the state's new employer sanctions law, is designed to provide some incentives for the approximately 150,000 firms that do business here to actually use the federal government's E-Verify citizenship verification system.

While the 2007 law mandates that companies sign up to use the database, there is no penalty for failure to comply. Instead, the law, which took effect Jan. 1, provides some legal protection for employers against being prosecuted for knowingly hiring undocumented workers.

The result is that fewer than 25,000 companies have signed up with the online system.

Under the terms of SB1374, companies that don't use the federal database would be ineligible for any public contracts, whether state, local or school district.

They also would be ineligible for government grants, loans or any economic development incentives.

The 2007 law says firms that knowingly hire undocumented workers can have all licenses to do business suspended for up to 10 days; a second violation within three years results in permanent loss of licenses.

While SB1374 is designed to force more firms to check whether new workers are here legally, other parts of the bill actually ease provisions of the original law in an effort to blunt employer opposition.